Trace amounts of natural and synthetic estrogens released into the environment by wastewater-treatment plants are known to cause reproductive abnormalities in fish. Researchers have now found an even more dramatic consequence of exposure to the synthetic estrogen used in birth control pills—the near extinction of a fish population.
LAKE LOSS. The population of fathead minnows (top) in a test lake (bottom) collapsed after researchers added the synthetic estrogen 17alpha-ethynylestradiol.
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